Kannada/ToDo
From Kannada l10n Wiki
List of ideas for GSoC 2008 submission. Outcome of the projects are intended to be released as free software (GPLv2 or later).
Unicode Standard Kannada Font
Design an Open Type Font for general use to be released in GPLv2 or later that includes Nuktha and old Kannada characters. The font can optionally replicate glyphs of any of the copyright expired traditional press font.
Significance:
- Presently there is hardly any complete, bug-free Unicode (Open Type) Font for Kannada. Kannada users are still looking for a proper general use font. Publishing industry in Kannada still relies on TTF fonts with old proprietary encodings. Absence of a good Kannada Open Type font has been one of the factors. When compared with the traditional press, the choice of fonts is limited too.
- Option of choosing a traditional press font could bring some of the fonts that are on their way to extinction to the digital world. Some wonderful Kannada fonts were used in the traditional press that are now widely forgotten, but not hard to find.
- Related Project - Aksharasiri
Resources
Books
- Fonts and Encodings by Yannis Haralombous. (Few copies of this book are available with some members of Sampada community. Students who need a copy, drop a mail to mail@sampadafoundation.org to check if anybody near you has one).
Difficulty level: Hard.
Conversion tool to convert from popular proprietary encodings in Kannada to Unicode
A platform independent converter between Nudi-Unicode, Baraha (including Baraha 5.0 encoding) to Unicode, SRG to Unicode, ISCII to Unicode, ShreeLipi to Unicode with a batch process mode. Input can be from text files, rtfs.
Significance:
- Old proprietary encodings are still widely used by Kannada users. Most people still stick to it due to the absence of a good conversion utility that would help them switch once for all.
- Much of the data populated in last decade by Kannada users have been in the old formats. A good conversion tool would help them shift to Unicode completely. This would increase the number of users using Unicode Kannada to search, blog and converse in Kannada on the Internet.
Links
Difficulty level: Easy
Lexical database
As on date, there is no publicly available corpus of Kannada words. A lexical database for Kannada needs to be planned and compiled. The project can be built on the lines of Wordnet and tools available for Wordnet can be localized to support this project.
Difficulty level: Easy
Aspell Kannada
Develop an Aspell dictionary for Kannada.
Word lists available presently for use:
- Gi Vem Dictionary - compiled by Professor G Venkatasubbaiah. (Permission status: taken; Digitized format available: yes)
- Kannada Saahithya Parishath Dictionary (Permission status: pending; Digitized format available: partial)
- Mysore University Dictionary (permission status: pending; Digitized format available: No)
Related Link:
Difficulty level: Intermediate
Input methods on GNU/Linux
- KP Rao layout on XKB
- Baraha phonetic on XKB
- Typewriter layout on XKB.
- Fix KP Rao Layout (also known as Nudi Layout) on SCIM.
- Fix Inscript layout on SCIM.
- Add Typewriter layout on SCIM.
- KP Rao Layout, Baraha phonetic, Typewriter Layout for IIIMF.
Difficulty level: Easy
Resources:
- Baraha Transliteration rule (needs Baraha Fonts installed)
- K P Rao (Nudi) Layout (needs Baraha Fonts installed)
- Indic Inscript Keyboard Layout diagrams
Typing tutor
Platform independent, preferably. It can cover:
- Inscript Layout.
- KP Rao Layout.
- Typewriter Layout.
Difficulty level: Easy
Links:
Rendering issues on GNU/Linux
Priority could be solve the rendering issues on GNOME, KDE and XFCE.
- Pango Bug
- ZWJ/ZWNJ issue.
- Font issues on various distributions (configuration, packaging).
Difficulty level: Intermediate
Dhvani - Kannada
Contribute to the TTS Program - Dhvani and complete the implementation of the Kannada Module. Integrate dhvani engine with GNOME/KDE. Write a web service wrapper over the dhvani engine for using in Web applications.
Links: Dhvani project page
Difficulty level: Intermediate
Translation
Localization of Drupal, Wordpress, Joomla, Moodle, Mediawiki to Kannada. (Drupal, Mediawiki and Moodle has been done for previous versions). Review Kannada Locale on debian.
Difficulty level: Easy
Astronomy and education related tools in Kannada language
A good contribution to the kids starting their education in Kannada medium would be to provide the wonderful tools present on GNU/Linux in Kannada. The applications:
- Celestia
- KStars
- openuniverse
- ssystem
The tools can also serve greatly in encouraging uneducated in Karnataka to learn easily in their native language.
Difficulty level: Easy
Tools for Mobile devices
Presently there are no standard tools available on mobile phones for basic input in Kannada language. There are various tasks undone in this direction.
Difficulty level: Intermediate
OCR
Either implement the objectives of projects such as Ocrad or JOCR with Kannada as the target language. Or develop a proof of concept character recognition library that can understand atleast printed Kannada.
Also check:
Difficulty level: Hard
Web tools
News aggregation from newspaper websites that use old proprietary encodings
Presently, various major sources of news (newspaper websites) in Kannada (Udayavani, Prajavani, Kannada Prabha) use old proprietary encoding to display Kannada characters. The information retrieved by crawling these websites can be converted and put into an aggregation.
An added search functionality, feature to add various other news feeds would help Kannada users find news in Kannada about any topic anytime.
Difficulty level: Intermediate
Script for on-browser Input in Kannada for Open source Content Management Systems
A basic script in JS for on-browser input that can be easily adapted through modules for Drupal, Moodle, Joomla, Mediawiki and other widely used Open Source Content Management Systems. Or this could be developed as a plugin for the popular tinymce, fckeditor, htmlarea tools.
The script could support various popular layouts namely, Baraha Phonetic, Nudi (K P Rao), Typewriter and Inscript. The script could use JS accelerators to toggle between various layouts and English.
The script could be built over presently available phonetic input solutions that are in GPL compatible license and perfected for various popular layouts of Kannada.
Related Link:
Difficulty level: Easy
Speech Recognition
Development of a proof of concept library/tool to interprete Kannada spoken language.
Difficulty level: Hard
Accessibility
Developing and adapting the above Kannada TTS, STT, other tools to the GNOME/KDE Desktop Environments as per their respective Usability/Accessibility Guidelines.
Difficulty level: Intermediate
Localised Linux Distribution
Develop a localised Linux distribution based on Debian/Ubuntu packaged and targeted mainly towards Government/Non-profits/Home. The distribution can have the major software available in Kannada.
Difficulty level: Intermediate
